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The Authors and Contributors of "Patent Docs" are patent attorneys and agents, many of whom hold doctorates in a diverse array of disciplines.

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July 14, 2010

Journal Examines Effects of Patent Reform on Medical Innovation

The
journal Medical Innovation & Business
has devoted its summer issue,
which was released last month, to an examination of the effects of patent
reform on medical innovation.The
periodical has assembled a group of recognizable and respected members of the
patent community to tackle various aspects of the topic.Among the articles that are presented in the issue (all of
which are freely available here)
are:

•
"Patent Reform: Effects on Medical Innovation Businesses,"
by Dr. Renee Kaswan, the founder of the non-profit organization, IP Advocate;
David Boundy, the Vice President and Assistant General Counsel for Intellectual
Property at Cantor Fitzgerald, LP; and Dr. Ron Katznelson, the Founder and
President of Bi-Level Technologies, lays the foundation for the special
issue which is devoted to evaluating the potential consequences of the Patent Reform Act
of 2010, with an emphasis on how the legislation will impact university researchers,
university spin-offs, emerging start-ups, and small life sciences companies,
especially those in the medical sciences.

•
"Conversations with Two Chief Judges,"
by Matthew Dowd of Wiley Rein, LLP, in which the former and current
Chief Judges of the Federal Circuit, the Hon. Paul R. Michel and the Hon. Randall R. Rader, discuss the
impact of that Court on the patent reform dialogue.

•
"Post-Grant Review-Our Next Nightmare? VC Perspective,"
by John Neis, a Managing Director at the venture capital firm Venture Investors
LLC, concludes that none of the proposed changes in current patent reform
legislation, including a much-expanded post-grant review system, would stimulate
investments in innovative startups, but rather would make these investments far
riskier and potentially untenable for venture capitalists

.

•
"Post-Grant Review of U.S. Patents: Will Past Be Prologue?" by Dr. Kevin Noonan, a founding author of Patent
Docs and partner at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP, explores
whether the reexamination schemes provided by current patent reform legislation
will improve patent quality and reduce litigation, as patent reform proponents
contend, based on an analysis of historical patterns of reexamination outcomes
and by contrasting the provisions of the earlier reexamination processes with
what is proposed in the Senate bill.

•
"The Gatekeeper Patent Damages Compromise of S. 515,"
by Philip Johnson, the Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for Johnson &
Johnson, looks at the most controversial provision of the Senate patent
reform bill -- that which relates to patent damages.

•
"The Proposed Interlocutory Appeals Provision of Patent Reform: Is It Dead
Yet?"
by Edward Reines, a partner at Weil, Gotshal and Mange, and Nathan Greenblatt, an
associate at that firm, addresses the "misguided" provision in
the House bill that would give district courts the authority to approve
interlocutory appeals of claim construction orders and deprive the Federal
Circuit of the discretion to decline such appeals.

•
"Patent Reforms Must Focus on the U.S. Patent Office," by Dr. Ron Katznelson, asserts that the USPTO operations (particularly those
that impact patent quality and the application backlog) must be the focus of
any patent "reform" movement, contending that "no reformed
statutory scheme can work well if the USPTO doesn't."